


Pyrite

by WithExtraScribbles



Category: One Piece
Genre: Adventure, Alternate Universe, But he also wants to find out wtf happened to Ace, Canon-Typical Violence, Dragon Roronoa Zoro, Found Family, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Luffy manages to find his crew in any world, Luffy still wants to be king of the pirates, Mythical Beings & Creatures, Supernatural Elements, The will be strong queerplatonic vibes in this thing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-23
Updated: 2020-09-12
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:34:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26071225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WithExtraScribbles/pseuds/WithExtraScribbles
Summary: Ever since she awoke the gift of sensing the supernatural, Nami has never been free. There is no shortage of criminals wanting her help to hunt magical creatures and her life comes before her morals. But when Nami's contract is sold to Pyrite Tower, she finds herself drawn in by the very creatures she's been paid to track down. How can you hunt the friends of your friends?
Relationships: Monkey D. Luffy & Roronoa Zoro, Mugiwara Kaizoku | Strawhat Pirates & Mugiwara Kaizoku | Strawhat Pirates, Nami & Nico Robin, Nami & Roronoa Zoro, Nami & Usopp (One Piece), Other Relationship Tags to Be Added, Roronoa Zoro & Vinsmoke Sanji
Comments: 8
Kudos: 19





	1. Pyrite Tower

**Author's Note:**

> I literally dreamed this fanfic and spent the day pouring it all into a word document. I am, as always, weak for AUs and since this one came so fully formed to my brain, I couldn't say no.
> 
> All of the straw hat pirates will feature, though I've only tagged characters we meet in this chapter. This world is very similar but also very different to canon.
> 
> Warning: In this chapter there is reference to past animal (?) abuse - specifically mistreatment of a certain dragon.
> 
> I hope you enjoy reading as much as I've enjoyed writing!

Nami doesn’t know how something can be so incredibly ornate and foreboding and yet so sparse. Pyrite Tower stretches into the sky like a skeletal finger pointing towards heaven. Except she isn’t sure that ‘like’ is the correct word. As the well-spoken man currently guiding her to her room tells her, that is exactly what the tower was modelled on.

She wonders, in her sleepless state, how that conversation had taken place. Had somebody had to approach a craftsman and say: _‘Can you design a tower to look like a skeleton’s hand giving God the middle finger? Oh, and make it black just to be edgy.’_

“That expression suits you much better, my dear,” says the man, giving her a creepy smile.

“I don’t know what you mean,” said Nami, purposely projecting a sunny aura into her voice. Her own smile does not reach her eyes, so she closes them so he can’t see.

The man stares at her. He has no eyebrows and his pale face makes his dark eyes seem dead. Staring into them, she sees no hint of his true nature or real emotion. There is amusement on his face. His tone is polite. His smile is not.

She smiles back. This man is nothing like Arlong. This organisation is nothing like Arlong’s. But greed makes up its foundations, greed and lust for power. Nami is good at dealing with powerful men. She doesn’t show her discomfort.

“My dear,” the man begins. “We value talent here. Yours was wasted in your last… position. Here, we benefit each other. Use your skills in service of the master’s dream and he may use his to assist with yours. Consider this change in employment a promotion.”

“I do,” says Nami. The light-hearted tone of her voice is a lie but the words are not. “Thank you, Lord Laffitte.”

Laffitte regards her for a long moment before stopping in front of a dark-wood door. He bows theatrically, gesturing towards it. “This will be your room from this night forwards, Miss Nami. Breakfast will be served from seven until nine. I will send someone to collect you. If you have any further questions or concerns, you may ask me in the morning. I bid you goodnight.”

She receives another bow and an ornate key is pressed into her hand.

With that, Laffitte dances down the empty stone corridor. Nami blinks and only shadows remain.

“Well,” she says, moving to unlock the door only to discover that it is already unlocked. “Home, sweet home.”

The door opens with a quiet click. Nami isn’t sure what she expected – probably a wrought iron bedframe and gothic approximation of the bare necessities for a bedroom – but the room is nicer than she had anticipated. Everything is dark wood but high quality. She has been given both a dresser and a wardrobe. There is a desk in the corner and it is well stocked with stationary and paper as though the person who prepared this room for her expected her to immediately get to work mapping out the island she has arrived on.

All of the belongings she was permitted to take from Arlong Park sit in a neat pile in the middle of the room. A selection of clothing rests on her bed.

It’s nice. Too nice. Nami doesn’t know how to feel about it – it’s a gilded cage after all. But she’s too exhausted to think about it. Too exhausted to unpack too.

She crosses the few steps to the bed and falls face first onto it, for once not caring about wrinkling her clothes. Her face finds the softness of a jumper that Bellemere had donated to her when she’d been a child. It should disturb her that someone has got it out and left it here.

But that is not what disturbs her. It’s more what she disturbs.

The pile of clothes underneath her wriggles and shifts. Nami shrieks, scrambling backwards on the bed as a green-scaled nose slowly pushes free of the fabric. A smoky sigh escapes the creature’s mouth.

There is a dragon on her bed, nestled amongst her _all very valuable to her_ clothes, apparently taking a nap. In her room.

“Shoo!” she shouts before she thinks, shoving at the little creature.

The dragon rolls off the bed and onto the floor. A soft snore is expelled as it lands but it doesn’t seem to notice that it has been displaced.

Nami stares, dumbfounded.

There is a dragon in her bedroom. A real one. It’s breathing. It’s _snoring._ She’s never seen one this close up before. She’s definitely never seen one like this.

Now that it’s no longer curled into a ball, it seems to be only a little longer than her torso. It is a muted green, scaled all over, with a fluffy mane down its spine. Its tail is long and curled, tipped with another tuft of hair like a lion’s. She wants to reach out and touch it but Bellemere’s teachings still ring in her head.

Dragons are very proud creatures. Intelligent. Strong. Powerful. They are not to be hunted. Not to be angered. Even the ones that are stolen from their nests and raised by humans can turn at the toss of a coin. You cannot trust any dragon that has not chosen you as their own.

And she just shoved it onto the floor. She wonders if the dragon was deliberately placed here. Maybe her new employer is giving her a trial by fire.

“Um… Mr. Dragon? Or Mrs. Dragon? _Miss Dragon_?” says Nami, leaning over the edge of the bed. “Hello?”

The dragon does not respond.

Nami reaches over and pokes it. Gently. It shifts but doesn’t wake. She has neither the time nor the energy for this inconvenience.

“Oi!” She flicks its scaly snout.

The dragon sneezes itself awake. It sits up like a dog, blinking one bleary eye in her direction. She can see now that one of its eyes is permanently closed, a thin silvery scar slicing down that side of its face. The adjacent ear has three gold earrings dangling like tags down from it. It belongs to someone in this tower; somebody has marked it. Her eyes travel down the dragon’s white underbelly, finding another gnarled fissure cutting across its chest. Somebody or something has hurt it badly.

It makes her blood boil.

The dragon shakes its head, making all three earrings chime together before its ears flatten to the side of its head. She snaps out of her thoughts. Nami hadn’t known until today that it was possible for such a small dragon to look so unimpressed.

“What are you doing in my room?” she asks it, softly this time.

The dragon yawns and fixes her a look that says, _sleeping, obviously._

It makes Nami yawn too. She gets up and drags her feet to the door, unlocking it and holding it open like she’s releasing a cat. “There you go. Go on.”

The dragon’s tail swishes.

Nami sighs. This time she points like she’s commanding a dog. “Out. This is my room.”

The dragon stands up, stretching out its legs. She realises that it is longer than she’d first thought and feels a rush of relief that it seems to be listening to her.

Then it hops back up onto her bed and curls into a ball.

“Out!” Nami demands.

A low growl erupts from the back of the dragon’s throat. Oh no, it doesn’t. Not on her watch.

Nami knows that dragons are supposed to be treated with respect. Their magic is a powerful as it is incomprehensible. They use their powers largely on instinct. She’s been told not to startle a dragon if she ever encounters one. Most are incredibly large, ancient and wise. She’s been told to treat them the way she would behave around an honoured elder. Because they _are_ honoured elders.

Treat them with respect and they might leave you alone.

But this dragon is a little runt. It is in her way and the thread of patience containing her temper is already worn thin. She figures that by the time this thing grows up to be anything formidable, she’ll be long dead. She doesn’t even know if she cares.

So she stomps over and grabs it.

The dragon yowls, digging its claws into her duvet.

“Let. Go,” snaps Nami.

She hooks one arm around its middle, which arches upwards with an odd bonelessness, and tries to unhook the claws one by one. The dragon replaces each talon instantly, growling the entire time. Its tail comes up and hits her hard in the face.

She releases it automatically, hand coming up to cup her nose. Tears come unbidden to her eyes.

“Fine!” she snaps. “Do what you want. I don’t even _care_ anymore - but these are _mine_ , understand? Touch anything and I will _end you_.”

She swipes the clothes up off the bed before the dragon can even look at them, tucking them safely into one of her bags. She keeps out the old jumper and puts it on over the top of her pyjamas, letting the soft warmth envelop her. By the time she’s done that, the dragon has released its grip on her duvet and now lays stretched out against the wall, leaving her ample space. It’s not ideal but she’s too tired to fight it so she compromises.

Nami clambers into the bed, yanking the covers over her head furiously. There is a suggestion of campfire smoke underneath the scent of Bellemere’s favourite perfume and Nami tries her best to ignore the former and focus on the latter, lifting up the neckline of her jumper to inhale deeply the scent of her home.

With each breath, she feels the irritation the dragon had caused rush out of her. Other emotions she doesn’t want to feel fill the void it leaves like waves chasing the sand. Nami holds her jumper to her face, holds herself together.

Somehow, the dragon crawls under the covers and presses itself into the crook of her elbow. Nami is too exhausted to push it away. And if her cheeks are wet when surprisingly soft hair brushes against her face then it is just a biological reaction to her damaged nose.

-

Laffitte sends a boy called Usopp to collect Nami for breakfast. She wakes to a gentle rapping at her door and promptly hurtles out of bed in a way she hasn’t since she was a little girl, sharing a room a room with a sister she had pranked the day before. It’s only as she exits the room after a mad scramble to get appropriately dressed, excessive apologies on her lips, that she realises she hasn’t seen the dragon.

“It’s fine – it’s fine,” says Usopp, waving away Nami’s apologies. “I was early anyway – I came straight here from a secret sea west of here. I spent the whole night tracking the horrifying were-kraken. They’re not like other were-creatures or other krakens you see. They only come out during the waning crescent moon and-“

“I thought it was a new moon last night,” says Nami, in spite of herself.

She knows she should humour him. She needs to make herself indispensable to as many people as she possibly can. But Usopp looks around her age and he’s so utterly obvious and honest in his lying that she can’t resist the teasing. It feels almost like they’re equals. They might be. She doesn’t know yet what Usopp’s situation is, whether his services were bought and sold without his consent the way that hers were.

“W-well,” says Usopp, visibly flustered. “Did I say waning crescent? I meant-“

She lets Usopp ramble about a creature they both know does not exist for a little while, taking note of the doors they pass and the staircases they take. He seems content to keep telling stories regardless of whether she interjects.

Finally, she thinks she’s endeared herself enough to him that it’s time to ask her own questions. “So what do you do here?”

Usopp seems slightly startled. “Me? Oh… I look after all the creatures we keep here.”

“Really?” says Nami, making it look like this is the most interesting thing she’s heard in her life.

She expects Usopp to immediately launch into another tall tale or to start animatedly telling her about the creatures he cares for but he doesn’t. Instead his lips press together slightly, brow furrowing.

“Yeah,” he says, forcing a smile.

“That’s interesting,” says Nami. “It must be a really rewarding job. And I’m sure a group like this has a lot of magical creatures.”

She already knows they do. She can feel them, the magical essences seeping through the stone underneath them. And not just underneath them – now that she’s well rested, she can feel something through the stone and it gives her the impression of old bones from a long dead myth. She wouldn’t be surprised if there were some biological components to the material of this tower. It puts her senses off balance.

Usopp looks away. “Y-yeah, we do.”

“I saw a dragon last night.”

At this, Usopp actually flinches. He tries to pass it off as a stretch as he reaches out to push up a large set of double doors. They swing open onto a large dining room with one long table stretching from one end to the other. Usopp swallows as he steps into the room.

He leads Nami over to a buffet table along the back wall and presses a plate and some cutlery into her hands.

“Breakfast is always done like this. You can take whatever you want, however much you want. It gets refreshed until nine,” says Usopp.

He begins to load his plate up haphazardly and Nami follows suit but with a lot more grace and planning. Usopp waits until she’s finished, leading her over to an area in the middle of the table. Nami doesn’t know if this is the best placement for them; seating arrangement at meals can reveal a lot about people and also be used strategically. But at the very least, they’re away from the head of the table.

The master of the tower sits at the head of the table, an unnatural hulking figure of a man, cloaked in swirling shadow. His aura pulses around him, not as overwhelming this morning, though she’s further away. He doesn’t have to try to intimidate anyone in his own breakfast hall, she supposes. Either way, the sight of him makes her skin crawl.

Yesterday, it had made her want to flee, cry or vomit. Frozen in place, she hadn’t been able to do any of those things. Arlong had agreed to part with her without bartering. It was a good deal that had been offered to him. That’s what he will say if he is ever questioned on it.

A dragon’s talons for an eighteen year old seeker.

“It was a small dragon – the one I saw,” says Nami, once the tension has drained from Usopp’s shoulders with half the tea in his cup.

Usopp coughs and begins to chug his water. Nobody around them reacts beyond a couple of curious glances.

The dragon in Nami’s room last still had all of its talons. There is a vast amount of magic in this tower.

“How many do you have?” she asks.

“Two,” says Usopp darkly, immediately stuffing another forkful of egg into his mouth.

“The one I saw was green,” says Nami, conversationally. “It had gold in its ear. Who is its partner?”

Usopp shifts uncomfortably in his seat, chewing deliberately slowly. Nami keeps her eyes fixed on him with a polite smile. He wilts underneath it.

“It’s… complicated,” says Usopp with a grimace. “Everything belongs to the master here. But the dragons haven’t chosen anyone here.”

Nami chews for a moment. “Because they’re too young?”

Usopp’s reply is so quiet that Nami almost misses it. “No.”

Suddenly, the bacon in Nami’s mouth tastes like ash. She swallows it down anyway, trying not to let it show on her face. Something tingles under her skin, an itch she cannot scratch. Nami is not an expert on magical creatures. She is not a scholar. She is a seeker. She can track any magical creature anywhere she is asked. But she has never sought anything like a dragon.

Still, she did not rise through Arlong’s ranks without gaining some knowledge. She doesn’t know much about dragons but she does know that they are proud and loyal. They only share their powers with one individual – a partner of their choosing. Those are the only dragons who live among humans.

The scars on the little green dragon paint a picture that Nami does not want to see.

She burns through a pile of questions in the time it takes for her to drain her coffee. How long have these dragons been here? Why? How were they acquired? Was the master hoping that one of them would choose him and they have not? How old are they? Will she be expected to look for more?

“Which one did I see?” she asks eventually. “It was sleeping on my bed when I came in.”

Usopp is still tense but the question doesn’t seem to make it any worse. “Ah, that’s Zoro. He takes a lot of naps. He’s not very sociable so he probably won’t bother you. He usually finds places that are hard to reach.”

“He just… roams freely through the tower?”

Usopp grimaces again. “He… He doesn’t like to be confined. And he’s slippery. And fast. And he’s not above biting. As long as he stays out of the way of anyone who matters and comes when he’s called, the master doesn’t really care what he does. You won’t see the other dragon. She’s… different.”

“The green one is less important,” says a cold voice from behind them. “It’s no good for what it was brought here for so now it is little more than spare parts.”

Nami almost jumps. A man has paused on his way past. Four plates are balanced on his arms. His expression is as cold as his voice. He regards Nami with a blank look from behind rounded glasses. Then he turns back to Usopp and adds sharply, “You would do well to remember that, Creature Keeper.”

Usopp bristles but says nothing.

The man breaks into a pleasant smile. It is nothing more than a mask. “Welcome to Pyrite Tower, Miss Nami. I’m told you were quite the acquisition. My name is Kuro. I look forward to working with you.”

“Thank you,” says Nami with a polite nod. “I look forward to working with you too.”

She has never meant anything less in her life.

-

Twenty minutes into breakfast, Laffitte drops a folder in front of her.

“You will be shadowing Usopp today. You should be familiar with the creatures we already have here. Most we will not be requiring more of. Some we should like to. A couple of them are featured on the list at the back of the folder. I expect that list to be memorised by the end of the week.”

Nami nods her agreement.

Laffitte continues, “Apart from that, our master has given you the week to yourself to settle in as you please. Do be on time for dinner. There will be a feast to celebrate your acquisition.”

Usopp doesn’t breathe until he walks away.

“Well,” says Nami, picking up what remains of her coffee. “I suppose I’m in your hands.”

At this Usopp smiles the first real smile of the entire meal. “I’ve already given everyone their morning meal but there’s always plenty to do. You should meet everyone.”

He pours the dregs of his tea down his throat and takes her plate with his. She smiles and thanks him, following him out of the dining hall.

Over the course of the day, she visits three different locations where different creatures are cared for. She makes appropriate noises of awe at each creature she sees – some of which she doesn’t even need to put on – and Usopp tells her a little about each one. He only complains a little bit when she chooses to stroke the half-horned unicorn instead of helping him muck out her stall.

“He’s a collector then,” Nami says as they climb up towards the top of the tower.

“Hm?” says Usopp. He has been humming to himself, eyes darting between all high or partly concealed areas, probably looking for the dragon.

“The Master,” says Nami, pronouncing the word a little bit too much. “All these creatures – it’s like a private collection.”

“Uh, yeah…” says Usopp in the least convincing tone yet.

“Usopp,” says Nami, stretching out his name darkly.

“Well, they each have… their uses,” he says finally, pausing before a reinforced steal door.

He digs out the largest ring of keys Nami has ever seen but has no trouble selecting the correct one.

“Uses?” Nami questions.

“Yeah,” Usopp all but whispers. “Like us, they all have their jobs. Otherwise, they… Unicorn blood has a lot of healing properties.”

“They take blood from her?” Nami echoes.

Usopp nods. “Yeah. Not enough to kill her or anything… just… they do it once a month and I don’t really know what happens to it after that. Sometimes they take hairs and feathers and… look, it’s really best not to ask too many questions about that sort of stuff.”

Nami wants to ask why but Usopp is shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot. His face shines with sweat despite the bandana he wears. Now is not the time to push it. So instead Nami lets him lead her into the area he calls ‘the aviary’, where the winged creatures are kept.

Once again, he introduces her to each one and she familiarises herself with the way that each feels so she could find them all again if she had to. Usopp stops her before she can reach out to a tawny griffon.

“Wait, wait,” he says, holding her hand back. He then reaches out his own and holds it out for the griffon to sniff.

When it does, he says to the griffon, “Pell, this is Nami. She’s new.”

Her hand is presented to the griffon. It sniffs at her hand, its breath tickling her skin, then drops its soft feathered face into her hand.

“Can I-?” says Nami, both to Usopp and the griffon.

Usopp nods. “This is Pell. He’s a griffon. We got him from Alabasta. He was smuggled in after the uprising. He’s blind but his sense of smell is excellent. Robin rides him sometimes. You might be allowed to if you’re going to be creature hunting. They say he was the fastest creature in all of Alabasta.”

Nami’s fingers go still. Pell pushes into her hand. As she scritches the griffon’s neck, she realises that his eyes have been closed the entire time. She replays her greetings of all the creatures she’s seen so far and realises that many of them were not… entirely whole.

Her mind returns to the green dragon and the scar across his chest.

“Poor thing,” says Nami softly.

As though he knows what she’s thinking, Usopp speaks up. “A lot of our creatures are like this. If Pell wasn’t hurt, we probably wouldn’t have caught him. Zoro too. Doc does what he can for them, or so I’m told but…” he trails off, clearing his throat. “Anyway, want to hear about the time I took Pell here on a round-the-world race?”

Nami doesn’t but she still replies, “Sure, Usopp.”

She examines the rest of the creatures with extra vigilance, noticing how some seemed to lack strength, other senses, some protrusions like antlers and horns, others entire limbs. It is almost like a rescue centre. Usopp cares for them all brightly and they all respond to him positively enough that Nami can almost believe he has rescued them.

But there’s something unsaid yet left out to fester like rotting meat. And Nami doesn’t like it.

“Are any of the creatures ever sold?” she asks as they make their way back down for dinner.

Usopp shakes his head. “If they are, it’s done before they’re brought back here. Only creatures on the wishlist get brought back. My job is just to look after the ones we do have.”

-

Before dinner, Nami takes the opportunity to bathe and change. She spends a few minutes selecting an outfit which makes her look well-dressed and respectable but not too formal. First impressions are important and she is determined that hers will be right.

She masks her surprise when she is collected by Kuro and takes the arm that is offered to her, even though his touch makes her skin crawl. He sees to it that she is seated between himself and a dark haired woman in a position of honour. Unfortunately, this also puts her within the range of the truly terrible aura emanating from the man in charge.

She can barely focus as the people around her are introduced one by one. There is something about the man at the table that just screams _wrong_. Nami has felt the auras of many awful men before (you know you’re an asshole when other people can feel it before you even speak) but this is not like that. The man at the end of the table is a truly terrible person but he is also something more. It’s like he is less of man and more of a terrible beast. And even then, his aura waxes and wanes and pulses, tumbling over itself like discordant tentacles, each controlled by a different master.

He only speaks to her once and it is when addressing all of the faces at the table, presenting her as their latest treasure.

A great cheer goes up. Alcohol sloshes in tankards. Nami doesn’t know if she should raise her own but a mountain of main with thick braids raises his mug across the table to her and she knocks the two of them together and drinks anyway. From the laughter of the men, she assumes it was the right choice.

The rest of the evening passes without incident. Nico Robin, a historian and archaeologist, engages in pleasant conversation with her. Kuro and a man named Crocodile periodically chime in. Mostly they discuss places the older woman has been and what she has discovered there that may be worth revisiting. Nami redirects most questions about herself, which nobody comments on, even if Robin’s piercing gaze and raised brow show she notices.

The feast slows to periodic picking at the table. The drinking begins. Nami memorises every name and occupation given to her, drinks every drink she is offered and doesn’t see Usopp anywhere in the crowd.

When the party winds down and the brawling begins, Nami slips out the room, taking the turkey leg offered to her by a man with a large red nose on her way out with skilful excuses.

She breathes a sign of relief when she finally makes it back to her room. The first thing she does is sink gratefully onto the bed, resting the turkey leg she’s still carrying across her bare thighs so her hands are free to deal with the straps of her heels.

The bed squirms and growls underneath her.

Nami is not drunk. She’s not sober either. Her first thought is _rat!_ not dragon. She leaps off the bed with one shoe on, catching the turkey leg out of reflex.

Zoro slides out from under the duvet then hops up onto her pillow.

“It’s you!” Nami shouts, pointing.

Zoro’s one grey eye fixes her with a look before he huffs and curls up again, his tail covering his noise.

“Hey, don’t ignore me,” she says returning to the bed. She removes her shoe and whacks him on the butt with the heel. “Get off my bed.”

He uncurls his tail just to glare at her.

It occurs to Nami in that moment that to Zoro, this entire situation might be the other way around. He was here first. To him, she might be the squatter. It then occurs to Nami that she hadn’t seen Zoro (or the other dragon for that matter) all day, despite being with Usopp. The dragon might not have left her room. If he hasn’t left her room today then he probably hasn’t eaten.

She pokes him in the nose with the turkey leg. “Want this?”

He stares at her for a long moment. She shakes the turkey leg slightly and his eye drops down to it. She watches as his pupil dilates and tail twitches with interest.

“If you don’t want it, I suppose I could throw it outside… Some ravens might eat it. This seems like the sort of place there would be ravens.” Nami stands but before she can take more than one step towards the window, the turkey leg has been ripped out of her hand.

The dragon dives onto the floor, meat between his teeth. She watches in equal disgust and fascination as Zoro demolishes the entire turkey leg, powerful jaw even crushing and consuming the bones. She is reminded, suddenly, of what Usopp said this morning. Zoro bites.

Now the dragon licks his each of the talons on his front feet then sits and lowers his head as he stares at her. She watches as his eye slowly closes then reopens. He repeats it once more, like it’s supposed to mean something, then hops onto the chair by the desk.

“Do… you want to leave?” she asks.

He doesn’t move. Has he relinquished the bed? Euphoria floods her with her victory. She has bribed a dragon with food that she hadn’t even purchased or got for herself. Free food. Victory is sweet.

Zoro remains there as Nami changes into her pyjamas and brushes her teeth. He is still there when she goes to get into the bed and spread out as much as she wants. She reaches for the light, catching movement from the corner of her eye.

The green lump that is the dragon curls into an even tighter ball. He looks so small curled up there. She can see the edge of the big scar he has and realises that it goes all the way down to his back legs. She notices his wings folded against him in a way that almost allows them to disappear into the line of hair (fur?) along his spine.

Kuro’s words come back to her. Spare parts.

Usopp’s words come back too. If he hadn’t been hurt, they wouldn’t have got him.

She wonders if he regrets whatever led him here. She wonders if he could survive on his own, if he even wants to. She wonders if he’s comfortable curled up like that on the chair.

Against her better judgement, she gets up and scoops him into her arms.

Immediately, talons prick at her shoulder as the dragon scrambles to find purchase. His eye snaps open. She feels the tension stiffen his body.

“Stop struggling!” she hisses. “Ow!”

He is surprisingly heavy. She drops him on the end of the bed, rubbing at her abused shoulder. The dragon’s hair stands up on end. He looks up at her, back arched like a disgruntled cat.

“That is the last time I try to do something nice for you,” Nami huffs. “Sleep on the chair then. Be cold. Do what you want.”

She climbs back into the bed, not caring if she jostles him as she gets her feet where she wants them, and turns out the light, closing her eyes and pointedly not moving.

She both hears and feels Zoro turn in a circle at the bottom of the bed. He seems to prepare to jump down, then think better of it. He stalks up towards the pillow. She feels his breath on the back of her neck and shudders.

Finally, after several minutes of movement, he settles on top of the blankets this time, curled against the curve of her back.

“Night, Zoro,” Nami mutters, reaching a hand down to stroke his head.

He growls a low warning in response.

Nami is unaffected. “Yeah, you sleep well too.”

The moment she draws her arm back down into the warmth of her bed, Nami is asleep.


	2. Scars (on the back)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nami learns more about the two resident dragons.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't originally plan to cut this chapter here. I was going go a lot further with it but it seemed off to transition from this point in the same chapter so it's a slightly shorter one this time. I did the opposite of last chapter, which I edited almost immediately after posting to add what what was supposed to be part of chapter 2 ^_^
> 
> Dragon Zoro in this chapter and the last is about the size of a medium dog but longer and a bit more of a noodle. He's a little bit like a limp ferret when manhandled in this chapter. I would draw him but animals are not my forte!
> 
> I hope you enjoy!

A soft knock on the door wakes Nami in the morning. She almost rolls over and ignores it but the knocker, while not too loud, is persistent enough sleep falls away from her. She becomes painfully aware that her mouth is dry and her head aches. A little pre-dawn light leaks through the curtains. Nami groans.

“Nami?” It’s a stage whisper.

“Coming, Usopp,” Nami grumbles, clearing her throat.

She swings her legs over the side of the bed and stands.

The rug shoots out from under her, hissing. She squeaks before she can stop herself, falling back onto the bed as Zoro glares with his one weirdly reflective eye, swishing his tail.

“Well, don’t sleep on the rug then!” Nami snaps, going to get the door.

Zoro simply looks at her, then returns to the exact position he’d been in before.

The door opens to reveal Usopp, still in his overalls but with no mud or other substances smeared across him. He smiles sheepishly as he adjusts his bandana.

“I didn’t mean to wake you up,” he says. “It’s just that I feed some of the creatures before breakfast. I was told to introduce them all to you so…”

Nami forces herself to smile even though she really wants to slam the door in his face. “It’s fine, Usopp. Just give me a few minutes to get dressed.”

Usopp gives a little awkward laugh and rubs at the back of his neck. “Sure, I’ll be here…”

Nami closes the door on him. She hurries through her morning routine, only briefly pausing to nudge Zoro out of the way of her chest of drawers so she can find a suitable pair of socks. He doesn’t wake up but he does roll over onto her feet, which puts him in the way of her putting the socks on.

“You’re impossible,” she says to him as she pulls one foot out from underneath him.

The sock goes on. She drops the socked foot down onto his back. He sleeps through that too but his warmth bleeds through the wool and she can’t resist rubbing her feet against him. It’s a pleasant feeling – like when the neighbour’s cat would jump into her lap when she would sit reading on the porch. A warm feeling. Cosy.

Nami supposes that’s the entire point of having a pet. She wouldn’t know; she’s never had one. It isn’t really feasible when you’re always on the move. It is even less feasible when nothing you own is really your own.

She pulls her other sock on and goes to get her boots. She doesn’t go back to the bed to fasten them, instead leaning against the wall. Her hair falls over her face, blocking the sleeping dragon from view. She sighs. She’s going to have to be more careful about locking her door.

Taking a deep breath, Nami opens the door to reveal Usopp sitting cross-legged on the ground outside. He leaps up as if stung.

“N-nami! I wasn’t napping, I swear. It’s meditation technique I learned from monks in the southern mountains of-“

Nami ignores Usopp’s rambling and points past him, turning her head to regard the uninvited guest on her rug. “Out!” she commands.

“Ehh!” Usopp splutters, pointing to his own face. “Me?”

“Hey, I’m talking to you – _not you, Usopp_ – yeah, you,” says Nami, in that same authoritative tone. She claps her hands several times, increasing the volume with each clap like she would to startle and shoo a cat. “Out! I said, out!”

Usopp takes a step back then a step forward. “W-what?”

He doesn’t peer into the room until Nami commands him to hold the door and stomps back inside. When he sees the cause of her ire, his eyes widen comically. “Zoro!”

Nami ignores him. She doesn’t know if little dragons have a scruff that can be grabbed at the back of their necks. She might not want him in her room but she doesn’t want to actively hurt him so she reaches down and scoops him up like a surprisingly limp cat, squishing him against her so he doesn’t break away. She remembers belatedly that he’s heavy and staggers under his weight.

“Na-NAMI!” cries Usopp, pulling at his hair. “You can’t just-“

“What?”

“You can’t just pick him up like that,” Usopp whines.

“It’s fine,” says Nami. She goes to shrug but she can’t raise her shoulders. “I gave him a turkey leg yesterday and now I’m his best friend.”

“ _Nami,”_ Usopp wails, “ _he’s a dragon_.”

“So?” says Nami. “He’s tiny.”

Except that he’s actually not that small, very heavy and slipping down her torso. She tries to tighten her grip on him but doesn’t succeed in hefting him up any higher. The tip of his tail drags on the floor as she begins to cross the room.

Usopp’s jaw might soon hit the floor too. His tone is borderline hysterical. “That’s not how you treat a dragon. Do you know anything about dragons?”

“Yes,” Nami hisses, still trying to adjust her grip. And failing. “Just like I know how to treat humans. And you don’t treat a child the way you do an adult so… it’s fine.”

“ _Zoro’s not a child_. You really don’t know anything about dragons and you really, _really_ should put him down before he wakes up.”

Nami was about to put him down in order to get a better grip on him but now Usopp has said that, she simply pauses. “Then why is he so small? What are you so worried about?”

The expression on Usopp’s face simply says _Everything._ Usopp’s voice says, “This is just the form he takes in the tower. It’s complicated but I can explain it or I can show you if you just _put him down_.”

Nami half-drags the dragon the rest of the way out of her room, dumping him on the floor by Usopp’s feet. A snore turns into a startled gasp as his body hits the cold stone. The dragon is on his feet in under a second, growling to protest the injustice.

Nami grabs her coat and locks the door behind her, ignoring him completely.

Usopp chokes then remembers how to breathe. “Well, it’s breakfast time and the dragons get fed first so I, uh, I suppose it’s a good thing you found Zoro, Nami. Should we… let’s go?”

He seems to present the idea more to the dragon than to Nami and more as a question than a statement. The look he receives from the one-eyed creature can only be described as uncooperative. With a swish of his tail, the dragon gets up and begins to walk down the hallway.

“It’sthisway,” says Usopp breathlessly.

The dragon’s tail freezes then sinks down between his legs. He performs and about turn and returns to them. Nami stifles her laughter. For all that Usopp has been stressing that he’s a dragon and dragons are not supposed to be treated like animals, Zoro walks beside Usopp like a well-trained dog at heel.

He turns the wrong way on the landing twice but returns to them when Usopp speaks. Usopp keeps up a steady stream of stories that Nami doesn’t really listen to because she’s busy noticing the doors, looking for any people who might be around. She doesn’t see anybody but she feels watched.

She notices that the dragon seems to be doing the same.

Eventually, they climb a series of spiral staircases towards the top of the tower and arrive at an impressively large black door. Usopp presses his hands against the door in a pattern that seems arbitrary but is obviously the pattern of some sort of magical locking system. Flecks of gold erupt from the dark surface of the door, forming a smaller arch shape, which falls away to admit them.

Arlong was a wealthy man but he certainly didn’t have anything like this.

“Quickly,” says Usopp. “It doesn’t stay open for long.”

Zoro hops up onto the railing, his wings twitching on his back.

“Nami, Zoro, come on,” hisses Usopp, standing in the doorway.

A low growl begins to rumble through the dragon then dies away. He looks down the staircase and away from Usopp.

“Do you need him to come?” says Nami.

“If he wants to eat, yes,” says Usopp, looking pained.

Nami grasps the dragon’s tail and, before he can pull it away, tugs sharply. He grips onto the railing, but falls to the side clinging like a particularly stubborn cat. He doesn’t make a sound.

Usopp gasps so loudly that his breath catches in the back of his throat. “Nami, you did _not_ just pull a dragon’s tail.”

She pulls harder. The wings on Zoro’s back begin to unfurl. He turns his head towards her, pinning her in place with weight of his stare. The eye narrows. Intent burns in his gaze. His lip curls back into a snarl.

Nami drops the tail as if stung. Whatever aura had just swelled around the creature fades away until his magical essence is just a suggestion of the presence that just overwhelmed her. Zoro’s wings flatten even more tightly to his body than before like he’s reining them in along with whatever power that was.

He hops down, pushing off the railing with enough force to make it vibrate. Head held high, he walks over to the door, brushing past Usopp, who squeaks. His tail drags on the floor.

Mentally, Nami gives herself a pinch, brushing past Usopp as well. “It worked, didn’t it?”

Usopp splutters. “But you don’t just – Nami, he’s a _dragon_.”

“So you’ve said. I think he’s a brat,” says Nami, stepping further into the room.

Crimson light pours down from the ceiling, bathing the room in red. It takes Nami’s eyes a moment to adjust and even then, she feels the need to blink away the pervading sense of wrongness that seems to radiate through this space. The feeling doesn’t fade even as she takes in the contents of the room.

Usopp goes directly into another room on the right while Nami stands there, unsure whether she’s expected to follow. The room is surprisingly sparse. The wall to the right has shelves up to about half its height. Every shelf but one is grey and bare. A singular black shape sits on top of one of the shelves, shoved towards the back of it.

Nami takes a step towards it, fully prepared to climb up there for a better look, only to stop dead in her tracks as what she assumed at first was a wall suddenly shifts. Black shapes swirl like smoke on its surface and fade away to reveal another room beyond. A room that is very much occupied.

All Nami can do is stare. She can’t feel the presence of the creature at all. Beyond the translucent surface of walls that are not quite glass, she can’t sense anything. It is as though the space behind it simply doesn’t exist. Her eyes tell her otherwise.

Lying on its side, back pressed against the opposite wall, is a black dragon. Its lithe body lies still, legs tucked in. This one is large yet sleek. Without Nami’s consent, she envisages this dragon soaring through the air, fast, deadly. More than one person could ride comfortably on its back but imagining it as anything other than free and wild feels wrong.

A platform lowers from the ceiling of her chamber and swings. Pieces of raw meat fall as it does, some striking the ground, others striking the dragon. It does not react.

Nami frowns, stepping up to the glass. “What’s wrong with it?”

“She’s sedated,” Usopp replies, voice muffled, from the other room. The platform begins to rise and Nami can hear the rhythm of it being pulled up in Usopp’s voice. “If she isn’t, it’s impossible to feed her – or that’s what the Doc says anyway. He says she’s too wild. He – I wasn’t trusted to look after them when they first arrived. Protocol and all that. I, uh, I have to follow those rules so…”

He trails off as he appears in the doorway. He isn’t looking at her. He stares through the glass at the still form of the black dragon for a long moment. Nami watches his throat bob as he swallows.

Finally, he adds softly, “Her name is Kuina. She and Zoro were brought here at the same time. They’re around the same age. And… the same size too in their natural forms.”

“The same… size? But Zoro is…” Nami begins.

Usopp nods, the expression on his face oddly grim. “I haven’t seen him like that for a long time but he’s probably bigger than she is.”

She realises with a jolt that she hasn’t seen Zoro since he entered the room ahead of her.

Without turning her head, Nami takes a calming breath, closes her eyes and searches. When her eyes open, they focus on what she previously dismissed as an item on the highest shelf. Under the red lighting, his scales appear dark. He is nestled towards the back of the shelf, hidden in the darkness of the corner except for the eye that turns her way, which seems almost silver as he peers through the shadow. She tries to imagine him larger and finds her mind’s eye drawn back to the piercing look he’d given her when she pulled his tail. She imagines it on a larger dragon, snarling, sharp pointed teeth almost as large as she is.

A chill passes over her. Maybe Usopp was right. Maybe she _shouldn’t_ have pulled his tail. She begins to search his eye for any sign of lingering resentment but it is fixed on the other dragon. He doesn’t look away even as he begins to raise his body like a cat preparing to pounce.

“Shit!” shouts Usopp, sprinting to the other room.

Nami’s eyes are automatically drawn to his movement. Then they aren’t. Her breath catches in the back of her throat.

On the other side of glass, the black dragon lifts her head. Fierce golden eyes lock on to Nami as the dragon gathers her feet underneath her. Nami’s mental image from moments ago returns except now it is real: Kuina rounds on her with a look of pure hatred burning in her eyes. Her body crouches low, tail flicking out threateningly. A low growl rumbles in her throat, building like thunder.

Smoke obscures the glass and the spell is broken. Nami scrambles backwards, biting back a cry of alarm, her back hitting against the lowest metal shelf. Whatever dark barrier had existed before Nami and Usopp had entered the room is reinstated, blocking the black dragon entirely from view.

“Sorry! I’m sorry – I should have –“ Usopp begins, emerging from that room again.

Nami barely hears him over the pounding of her own heart in her ears. She doesn’t see him either. The image of the dragon remains seared into her eyelids. The dragon, black, sleek, powerful, that she had imagined soaring proudly over mountains only moments before. The dragon, hunched low in a room that felt like a cell, chained at the ankle. Crimson light shining from the surface of thick, twisted scars which stretched down the length of her back.

“Usopp,” Nami hears her own shaky voice ask. “What happened to her wings?”

Her ears are ringing. Bile rises in the back of her throat. The red lighting is doing something weird with her vision and the shelf behind her seems to shift in the opposite direction. She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath through her nose.

The response she receives feels far away. It doesn’t sound like Usopp’s voice.

“ _They were taken from her._ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!
> 
> Some heavy backstory hints in this chapter...
> 
> Next chapter, Nami is going to be starting work and we'll get a little bit more Robin.
> 
> As always, comments bring life to these old writing bones and all comments are appreciated ^_^


	3. Research

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nami looks into the first of the creatures she's been brought in to find: the basilisk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is not quite as edited as I would like. I've been going through it a bit in my personal life and am somewhat lacking in the oomph to cut this thing down.
> 
> There is a lot of exposition in this chapter but it all leads up to some excitement and new characters next chapter, which I'm verrrry much looking forward to!
> 
> Thanks to everyone who has been reading so far and I hope you enjoy ^_^

A single slice of toast is all Nami has for breakfast. It’s as dry as the conversation going on around the breakfast table and as hard to swallow as her entire morning has been. She chose it because dry toast is supposed to settle the stomach but it just adds an extra layer of discomfort to the sickness in the pit of her stomach.

She excuses herself as soon as she possibly can and heads straight back to her room. For the first time since she arrived, the room is empty. It feels almost as cold as the corridor. A chill runs through her body and she sinks slowly onto her bed, rolling herself up in the blankets.

A hint of campfire smoke tickles the back of her throat, the last lingering traces of Zoro’s presence in her room. Campfire smoke, Bellemere’s perfume and vague undercurrents of generic soap. They don’t go well together. Her stomach churns.

_They took them from her._

She doesn’t know why but the phrase haunts her. She’s had a killer headache from the moment that sentence receded. She almost passed out, familiar black spots blotting out the world before her. If she didn’t know any better, she might have thought the dragon had cursed her. But dragons don’t do that, she’s pretty sure.

The golden eyes of the black dragon burn before her own for just a moment too long.

Nami shivers. Why does her room have to be so cold? She finds herself almost wishing that Zoro was still here. The small dragon’s presence made the room warmer, probably literally, seeing as he was by nature a being of fire. But Zoro had slipped out of that room before Usopp and Nami – without eating, much to Usopp’s chagrin – and vanished.

She begins to make her way through the folder of information Laffitte gave her yesterday and she is glad the dragon is not here.

The beginning pages of the document are about what she expects: information about Pyrite Tower; a map of the facility with areas of interest to her labelled; key personnel she will need to meet and work with. It occurs to Nami that these people are entirely too confident. A document like this in the wrong hands would be the undoing of a smaller group. She wonders how powerful these people are – excluding the so-called master of tower.

If she was aware of a competitor with comparable strength and resources, she could pass this information off, perhaps negotiate herself a better deal. But she is not. She hasn’t got the measure of these people yet. She’ll play it safe; she’s not going to make the same mistakes again.

Next, there is a questionnaire. The colour drains from Nami’s face, a noise of disgust rising in her throat. She skims over questions about skills and past experiences that might benefit the company. She lingers over questions such as, ‘where do you see yourself in five years’ time?’ and ‘Is there anything omitted that our company could provide for you?’ She actually scoffs at those.

She very nearly laughs. They know her skills. They wouldn’t have bought her contract from Arlong if they hadn’t. They know what she wants: her debt written off. Her safety. Her freedom. She knows what they want: to fool her into believing she has a place here so she’ll work harder, only to have what little freedom she’s won ripped away from her again.

She is no different to the black dragon. Her cage is nicer. Her chains are longer. Her body is whole. But she can’t fly either.

The offensive questionnaire is set aside and left for a time when she’s less angry and less tired. She doesn’t know if that time will come but she does know that it isn’t now. With a sour taste in her mouth, Nami moves on to the list of creatures she is expected to help them hunt.

_Banshee_

_Basilisk_

_Dragon – (gold, red, black)_

_Faerie_

_Hydra_

_Nymph_

_Phoenix_

Each one has notes underneath, vague hints of where they might have been spotted, who had seen them and when, which people in the tower would be best placed to assist in their capture. Robin, she notices, is listed as a person to make contact with under every single one. There are no reasons attached to any of them and Nami wonders why their master wants more dragons when he already has two, why he needs them in specific colours.

She memorises the list and the contacts. She doesn’t see any of them today.

She finds Usopp again after lunch and asks him about the list and the master’s reasoning for it. He simply shrugs his shoulders and continues cleaning Pell’s stall, while Nami gently strokes the griffin’s neck.

“They’re powerful creatures,” he says.

“So they’re fancy pets?” asks Nami.

Usopp sighs. He looks exhausted. He has been on edge since the mistake he made with Kuina at breakfast. “No? …I guess? I told you – they all have their uses.”

“But why so many different colours of dragon? Why does he want another black one? Is it conservation? Is he hoping to raise his own? Black _does_ seem to be his favourite colour.”

She thinks aloud, leaning her arm around the griffin’s shoulders. He tilts his head a couple of times like an ordinary bird but doesn’t seem to mind.

She’s almost forgotten that Usopp is there, so lost is she in her train of thought. She definitely doesn’t expect him to reply; he has that uncomfortable look on his face again – the one that tells her he knows more than he’ll admit to. For now, she won’t push it. She is new; she hasn’t earnt his trust yet. In his position, she would keep her cards close to her chest too.

Finally, he says a little too quietly for the Usopp she’s come to know: “You ask a lot of questions, Nami.”

“I don’t get many answers,” she mutters.

Pell shifts and her hair is blown into her face.

-

Usopp avoids her the next day. She wakes up cold and alone to a silent chamber. There is no need to hurry her morning routine so she’s free to move with the lethargy she feels. Breakfast is also consumed slowly, so she can take note of who comes in when, who they choose to sit with and what time they leave.

She is able to corner Crocodile when breakfast ends and follows the man up to his office. The smell of cigar smoke is cloying up there but Nami is well versed with dealing with unpleasantness. Her poker face is second to none. She makes the right sounds at the right times and doesn’t react when he regards her with a look that is made more predatory by the whiteness of his teeth and the stretch of the barbed scar across his face.

For her troubles, she receives a well-presented document about a surprisingly illusive basilisk that the man believes to have made its home in a secret tunnel network underneath Alubarna. The document is comprehensive, containing detailed accounts of sightings and incidents with dates and times that span a great number of years.

“We searched for it during the uprising,” Crocodile drawls. “It should have been drawn by the vibrations of the battle…. amongst other _attractions_.”

He pauses to take a drag of his cigar, presumably savouring the flavour before giving a slow exhale. The smoke hangs in the air around them.

“But it wasn’t?” Nami prompts.

Crocodile grimaces. “No, it was. There were… complications regarding its retrieval.”

Something darkens in his expression. He leans against the desk, regarding something outside of the window with distaste. Nami flicks over a page in the folder she has been given but says nothing.

“Miss Nami, have you heard of Whitebeard?” He watches her from the corner of his eye. The light catches on the hook he has for a hand as he turns.

Nami nods slowly, resisting the urge to shift uncomfortably in her seat. It’s enough that she is sitting by the desk, while Crocodile’s large figure looms over her. But now she recalls her years with Arlong, the spat curses into tankards and over food, the slamming of fists and breaking of wood. Many of their missions had been thwarted by Newgate and his crew, months of her work wasted. She always had to work additionally hard when that happened. Like it was her fault; she needed to work faster.

“Yes,” she says, keeping her voice level.

“A persistent thorn in our sides.” Crocodile takes another drag of his cigar. “There is a more detailed account in that folder I’ve given you. I do not believe it was a planned event for them. If it was then it was a failure. We may not have been able to extract the basilisk but neither did they. They have not returned for it.”

“So we’re racing them to capture it?” Nami questions.

Crocodile turns fully to face her. “I don’t believe so. I have agents all around Alabasta. They could not enter the country without my knowledge and they have not been back.”

Nami nods thoughtfully. “I wonder what they were there for.”

For the first time since they entered his office, Crocodile returns to his desk and sits behind it. “I neither know nor care. Whatever it is, they either took it or have chased it elsewhere. It does not interfere with our goals.”

He reaches into a drawer and pulls out a different file, flipping it open and searching for a pen. “If you really want to know, ask Nico Robin. That woman loves to research unnecessary things.”

His eyes skim the page as he speaks. He pauses to make a note in the margin. It is clear that the conversation is over.

Nami stands, bowing her head slightly. “Thank you, Mr Crocodile. I will return this once I have the information I need.”

Crocodile makes a vague noise of agreement but does not look up. Nami takes that as a dismissal and turns to leave.

As she pulls the door open, he speaks. “Oh, and Miss Nami? Watch out for a boy in a straw hat.”

She pauses, regarding him curiously. He neither looks up nor elaborates. She debates asking why.

“I want that folder returned by Monday.”

Nami agrees and is gone.

-

She spends the rest of the day in her room studying the information. She doesn’t quite make her own copy of it but she does begin to transcribe all information she deems to be relevant. Included in the folder is a collection of maps annotated with where they believe the basilisk tunnels and underground ruins intersect. Nami spends the rest of the day laying them all out over the floor in her room and piecing them together to create her own master map of Alubarna.

She’s so invested in that that she very nearly misses dinner. She arrives just in time to take some food from the buffet. A few people are still sitting around, most nursing drinks, but nobody she knows well enough to sit with. At this point, as she understands it, most employees will be in their own areas or the bar. Nobody notices or cares as she wraps up some food in napkins and leaves.

She knows she will need to show her face in the bar eventually but the call of the map she has started is stronger. Like she is following the trail of a particularly obvious magical presence, her feet find her room with ease.

First, she finds Zoro. The small dragon sits on the bannister, staring down the staircase. Nami falters mid-step. For a moment, she is unsure what to do about this. Should she say something? Do something?

Then she takes her next breath and remembers that Zoro is not her problem. He is not her responsibility. And he also lives here so, in spite of what Usopp said about him napping all the time and not bothering her, she’s probably going to see him a lot.

She passes him by without a second thought, only to jump with a stifled scream as the dragon leaps off the bannister down to the next floor and follows her to her door.

He waits outside, his one eye flicking between the food in her arms, her face and her hands.

“You want my dinner, don’t you?” she says to him.

He looks away in a way that seems very deliberate, tail flicking behind him. She hears a low growl emanate from him and is about to give him a piece of her mind when she realises it’s his stomach.

The fight leaves her with a sigh. He does make her room seem warmer.

“Alright, fine. You can have some. But if you so much as touch a single one of my maps, you will _be_ my dinner. Is that clear?”

This time he does growl at her. But he holds his head low and doesn’t look at her as she unlocks the door and holds it open for him like she is admitting a particularly persistent housecat.

He does remind of her of a housecat, she notes as she watches him pick his way across her room without disturbing her maps. His tail is held out behind him, angled upwards so it doesn’t catch on anything on the way. His wings periodically come a little looser and flutter like he’s debating taking off but are never unfurled. She wonders briefly why he didn’t just fly across.

But then he’s sitting up on her bed, blinking at her. And there is something annoyingly smug about his expression as he waits.

She is already unwrapping her bedside picnic under the dragon’s curious gaze when she realises she has no idea what he is and is not supposed to eat.

“Wait,” she commands him, staring down at her food.

She has a four sandwiches, two chicken drumsticks, a bread roll, some cheese and some fruit.

“Well, bread is bad for most animals so that’s out…”

Nami isn’t sure how, but Zoro looks offended by that statement. A low rumble begins from his chest. She grabs one of the chicken drumsticks and taps the top of his nose with it. “I guess you can have these. Don’t make a mess.”

It is consumed in one bite. The crunching of bones is off putting, but Nami selects a sandwich and forces it down. Surprisingly, the dragon does not help himself to anything else but he does watch her eat and that is also off putting so she tosses the other chicken drumstick to him as well and since that probably isn’t enough either, she takes apart two of her sandwiches and gives him the cured meat inside.

She finishes the other sandwiches and peels a tangerine, allowing herself one moment to bask in the citrus smell. Her eyes fall closed. Without them open, she can almost believe that she is home. But home is not the same. She is not there. And the smell of these tangerines is not the same as the grove outside of Cocoyashi village.

She pops a segment into her mouth and bites down, sucking the juices out like she had when she was a child. It doesn’t taste the same either. It’s not as good.

Zoro is still watching her. She holds out a tangerine segment.

“Want one?”

Zoro leans in a little closer and sniffs at the offered piece of fruit but doesn’t come in close enough to touch either the food or Nami’s hand.

“I don’t blame you. My mother used to grow the best ones. These ones aren’t as good.”

She doesn’t know why she said that. Her mood sours and as it does, so does the tangerine segment she just popped in her mouth. She grimaces and puts the peeled tangerine down on the now empty napkin she had wrapped the chicken legs in earlier.

Zoro picks it up and seemingly swallows it whole.

Nami stares at him incredulously.

-

She doesn’t go down for breakfast the next morning. She still has the bread roll, cheese and some fruit remaining from the night before and her map is nearly complete. She knows she probably should show her face but she’s always loved map making. In another life, this might have been what she was born to do. And Crocodile does want the file back as soon as possible… so that’s the excuse she uses.

She tries to let Zoro out but the dragon decides to take up residence on the windowsill instead. Nami doesn’t complain. All that can be seen of him behind the curtain is his tail. He does not get in her way and the room remains warm.

It is around lunch time and Nami is finally packing the original maps away when there is a knock on the door.

“Come in!” Nami shouts, expecting Usopp.

The tap of shoes and the voice that greets her is not Usopp. “Oh my, Miss Nami. You have been busy. I was told you had the basilisk files.”

Nico Robin enters the room and stands to the side so that the door can close. She does not disturb any of what must look like a chaotic mess on the floor.

“Ah, yes. I got them from Crocodile yesterday. I was just making my own notes and I thought it would be useful if these maps were collated into one.”

Robin smiles. “That will be very useful. Would you like a hand to pick these up? Are you done with them?”

“Oh, uh, yes but it’s fine. I laid them out, after all.”

Robin bends down and collects the sheets of paper by the door anyway. The older woman’s silence makes Nami nervous but she says nothing as they collect and reorganises the papers. Robin smiles again as she passes her pile of them across to Nami.

The archaeologist opens her mouth to speak at the exact moment that Zoro chooses to jump down from his spot behind the curtain onto her bed. He pays them no mind as he pads up towards Nami’s pillow but Robin’s blue eyes widen.

“Oh, Roronoa,” she says, some surprise in her voice. She bows her head towards the dragon, who regards her with apparent disinterest.

Zoro lays down on his side, stretched out on the bed. His eye remains open for a long moment, watching Robin specifically, before it drifts closed. Robin neither looks away nor says anything until it does.

“I was not aware you had such an esteemed guest,” says Robin.

Nami shrugs, “Guest implies he was invited. He just lets himself in. I think my bed was his nap spot before I arrived.”

Robin’s eyebrows raise before her expression settles back to normal. Nami wonders if she should have said that.

“He must like you to keep coming back,” Robin remarks. She gestures to the desk chair. “Shall we sit?”

“Oh, sure,” says Nami. She perches on the end of her bed. Zoro’s tail twitches and tickles her back. She grabs it, shoves it to the side and pins it there with one hand.

Robin watches the exchange with barely concealed interest.

“I will get to the point,” she says, sitting on Nami’s chair and crossing one leg over the other. “I was told you had taken the basilisk file. I assume that means you are interested in pursuing it.”

Nami doesn’t like her choice of words. She has no interest in any of this. “Well, I have been given a list of creatures to capture. I’ll need as much information about all of them as possible since I’m expected to find them all. Why? Do you have a suggestion? I was told you’re linked to all of these creatures.”

Robin smiles. “I am a researcher, Miss Nami. Gathering information is my job… as well as my vocation. The basilisk is a fearsome creature for your first assignment but your reputation does precede you, and, considering Crocodile’s involvement, we have a lot of information on its whereabouts. If you want to be noticed, it would not be a bad choice.”

Nami doesn’t say anything. For a brief moment, Robin looks at her like she’s seeing right through her. Nami tightens her grip on Zoro’s tail accidentally. It jerks out of her hand.

“I was considering going to Alubarna tomorrow myself. There is a lead I would like to follow on a personal project of mine. Would you like to join me?”

Nami tries to find the catch to this. There must be a catch. There is always a catch. But Nico Robin is apparently an important person to know. The benefits of going with her outweigh the possible costs. Even though there is something about this woman that screams _danger._ Nami doesn’t think that part of Nico Robin has been aimed at her.

She needs to make this woman an ally.

“I’d love to,” she says.

Robin smiles again. “Excellent. Be on time for the start of breakfast tomorrow and we will leave once we have eaten.”

“I look forward to it,” says Nami and it’s not entirely a lie.

Robin stands and begins to move towards the door. She pauses by the suitcase that Nami has still not fully unpacked. It sits open on the floor, Bellmere’s jumper still folded on top. Robin pats the top of it, which makes enough sound to prompt Zoro to raise his head.

“This suitcase is a perfect size for the trip. I would recommend leaving it mostly empty. You will need to buy clothing for the desert and now that Alubarna is being rebuilt, they have some interesting wares you can’t get anywhere else. Leave space for some souvenirs.”

Nami’s heart sinks at the concept of expense. It sinks further at the concept of souvenirs. It has been a very long time since Nami has been able to buy anything she can’t argue that she needs to do her job.

“Thanks,” she says and doesn’t mean it.

Robin sniffs, leaning down to pick up Bellmere’s jumper from the top of the case.

Nami tenses. Zoro yawns and stretches. This time his tail slaps her in the arm.

“It gets cold at night in Alubarna,” says Robin. Her eyes gaze moves between Nami and Zoro. She smooths the fabric of the jumper and begins to neatly fold it. “You will probably need something like this. It must be quite warm. I would leave your case open to air for a little bit though – it obviously makes an attractive pillow for your guest. Dragons leave a certain… smoky scent behind.”

Robin replaces the jumper as Nami turns to glare at Zoro, the tips of her ears already beginning to turn red. Zoro sits up and watches Robin, paying her no mind at all.

“I will. Thanks,” says Nami and means this one even less.

Robin nods, smiles and lets herself out. “I will see you at breakfast tomorrow. Bring your luggage with you.”

“Yeah,” says Nami. “See you then.”

Then she turns to Zoro and flicks his nose. “I thought I told you to stay out of my stuff!”

He huffs and slinks away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: to Alubarna!
> 
> I wonder who Nami and Robin will get to meet...
> 
> Thank you for reading! As always, comments inspire me to keep writing. I'm always open to constructive criticism. And I hope everyone's having a great week :)

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!
> 
> As always, I love receiving comments of all kinds (even if it's just a 'yo I read this'). Comments are the fuel that makes me write more. I also accept constructive criticism. ^_^
> 
> I hope you're all having a great weekend!


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